Anyone with HighPoint SATA Raid experience?

[cjolley]

Well, I have about $400 to spend of collected Birthday money.
So I thought I might go HardDrive Zoot and get two WD Raptors and an SATA Raid controler.
I am thinking about the HighPoint.
Any one out there who has one?
What do you think?
I have had both Promise and HighPoint controlers and I think the HPs have much better software.
But I don't know anything about the SATA card specificaly.
TIA
Chuck

PS We are talking Raid 0 of course.

[Technoid]

NFI about Highpoint SATA, I dont let nightmares into my machine :P

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Technoid
NFI about Highpoint SATA, I dont let nightmares into my machine :P

What card did you have?

chuck

[Technoid]

no one in my machine as stated, but i truble shooted enough highpoints on customers computers to know that untill they release a card that some other dardevil tested and found ok I'll avoid them



Edit: spleleing

[Gurm]

Highpoint = SATAN.

- Gurm

[Maggi]

the other day I was talking to Tyan's tech support about having problems with my Promise IDE RAID controller and they suggest to use http://www.3ware.com/ controllers, since they never had any problems with those, but all other manufacturers.

Dunno how reliable this hear-say might be, but maybe you could look into those as well ?

[Maggi]

just found alink that points to reviews:

http://www.3ware.com/about/articles.asp

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Gurm
Highpoint = SATAN.

- Gurm

Yeah. that would be a nightmare to have in ones computer

[MultimediaMan]

3Ware controllers of the past have inexplicably "lost" arrays...

The HPT SATA controllers I have seen have been pretty solid. But then again I have only seen one in actual use, and that was with a pair of SATA to EIDE Adapters on WD HDDs.

My HPT370 IDE RAID controller has been flawless for nearly three years. Win9x, Win2K and now XP: the drivers have been stable, there have been no lost arrays or corruption and the BIOS releases have been impressive. I have used my HPT 370 exclusively on Intel chipsets, which is probably why my problems have been non-existant.

Promise has a couple of SATA controllers out already.

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Maggi
the other day I was talking to Tyan's tech support about having problems with my Promise IDE RAID controller and they suggest to use http://www.3ware.com/ controllers, since they never had any problems with those, but all other manufacturers.

Dunno how reliable this hear-say might be, but maybe you could look into those as well ?

At $345 on price watch for the Escalade 8500-4, that would only leave me $55 to buy the drives with.

chuck

[HomeBrewer]

Question is why do you want raid? Speed/performance or data integrity or both. Given your initial budget you can achieve a higher performance and data protection RAID 5 with a SCSI solution.

LSI Logic MegaRAID Express 500 Ultra160 SCSI RAID $359 at googlegear.com

three 18 GB 68 pin ultra 160 drives $90 - $110 each from various manufacturers (total storage capacity is double as the third drive is for parity info/data integrity. Initial starting $644 - $704

It is fast and reliable. If your budget allows you can size the array with bigger drives like 1 additional 18gb for 54gb. no matter how many drives only 1 worth of capacity is dedicated for data integrity.

Since this is to be a PCI bus based solution IMHO the xfer speeds of SATA are more than offset by a SCSI hardware solution.

[cjolley]

To replace my old 40gig maxtor (don't know the model) system drive.

Some time ago my 2 60gig GXPs were relegated to a mirror set on a promise TX2 after thier second replacement due to failure.
(this set is shared with my wife for general file storage & backup.)

The setup would be 2 drive raid 0:

HP 1520 controler = $61
2x WD360GB = $314
Shipping = Free
Total = $375

Chuck

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Gurm
Highpoint = SATAN.

- Gurm

Yes, but sometimes I like to dance with the devil in the pale moon light.
chuck

[CHHAS]

What are you doing that requires massive sequential transfer rate ? RAID 0 usually makes no sense for 'normal' users and gives you a higher risk of losing your data.

[Gurm]

Chuck,

That's the "handsome yet dangerous fella" devil. I'm talking the "Lord of the Flies" devil. Beelzebub. The hideous gnawing demon. That one.

- Gurm